Display systems can be configured as scanning-beam display systems which scan one or more optical beams that are modulated over time to carry optical pulses as the beam moves over a screen in a raster scanning pattern to form images on a screen. Each scanning beam has a small beam footprint that is less than or equal to a subpixel on the screen and the beam footprint scans the subpixel and is modulated in optical power or intensity in the time domain to carry images. Raster scanning of such a modulated beam on the screen converts images carried by the sequential optical pulses into spatial patterns as images on the screen.